Fallout 4- Automatron EyeBot Companions

When Automatron was announced, I was ecstatic at the prospect of travelling once more with my favourite little buddy from the Mojave. I raced through it because I was told there were buildable EyeBots at the end, only to be bitterly disappointed by what were basically fetch quest bots that wouldn’t accompany me on my journey into the bowels of hell (especially when the first one sent me to Medford Memorial Hospital (which is basically the bowels of hell for me given how often I get sent there).

Anyways, I really, really wanted to hang with my little buddy again so I decided that if Bethesda weren’t going to do the right thing, I’d do it myself. And here we are.

Fly Far, Fly Fast!

Spoiler Show

WHAT IT DOES
Adds EyeBots to the Robot Workbench. They work like any other Robot companion, and have a range of customisation options. And yes, you can turn Ada into an EyeBot, and as a new feature, EyeBot-ed companions can now be un-EyeBot-ed. As of v0.9a, EyeBots can now be painted in 50+ different colors for their visors and shells, for a total of over 2500 unique combinations. And yep, it now includes Sonya’s model! Oh and as of v0.99a, thanks to the generous texturing of mkdo40 (whose mod Wasteland Imports you should definitely check out if you’re finding yourself missing the Mojave), it now has a proper Duraframe (ED-E!), with optional numberplate and sticker. Ya.

Plus, as a less-than-serious bonus they can be used as Torsos with the various legs (though they sit around the pelvis region rather than on top of the legs).

Obviously, this mod requires Automatron.

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
Most important thing: if you haven’t already, please follow THIS GUIDE RIGHT HERE to properly enable mods.

Install the mod manually or through your mod manager as you would any other.
Once in game, you just need to wait a few seconds so that the formlist updater script can run before you use the robot workbench (it runs on every load but checks if it needs to make each change so on later loads the wait shouldn’t be necessary unless something messes up the formlists)
Once you get a message in the top left corner of your screen saying the installation is done, you’re good to go.

I strongly recommend that you try the mod out right away after installing it (using the cheat recipes esp if need be, to get an idea of the full capabilities of the mod) and decide whether you want to use it or not, and if not uninstall it and revert to a save from before you installed it (which won’t require using the uninstaller as the mod obviously can’t do anything to save files made without it installed), making sure you don’t lose any progress if you decide not to use it later. That said, I will always endeavour to make any changes that might be too immersion breaking entirely optional and avoid foisting the mod upon you in gameplay, so that if you don’t wish to use it any more it can simply be kept installed but ignored without any hassle, and also try to ensure that there shouldn’t be any changes that make you want to stop using the mod after having it installed for a while. The scripting is an improvement in this regard because it means you’re much less likely to need to uninstall the mod to use another Automatron mod, and again I’ll always try to keep things compatible (at least to the degree of not causing crashes etc – only so much can be done above that).
Note that this advice isn’t specific to this mod, or even to scripted mods – it goes for every mod out there. Consider it a PSA of sorts.

MISC NOTES/ADVICE
EyeBot Weapons:
For most EyeBot Weapons, you will need the playable weapon the mod is based off in your inventory (eg any plasma gun for plasma weapons) – the idea being that you’re making a miniaturized version of the weapon so you need an example to work from.

COMPONENT LISTS:
The component lists for many of these items don’t fit on Bethesdas gigantic console-focussed interface without scrolling. If you think you have all the ingredients and perks and the recipe is still grayed out, please try scrolling.

Various Paint/Decals
A lot of the Paints/Decals, especially those for factions from this game and others, have minimum level or quest requirements (usually completion of the first quest in that faction’s quest line).

Atomic Radio Tuner:
For this tuner to work you’ll need the Atomic Radio mod, found on Bethmods or here (download link is in the menu at the top). It’s great and I heartily recommend it.

MOD TYPE RUNDOWN
EyeBot (Submersible) Propulsion System (Legs) – Makes it an actual EyeBot with working EyeBot weapons etc. Precludes arms.
EyeBot Propulsion System Upgrade (Legs): Improves movement speed.
EyeBot Core (Torso) – Needed for EyeBot Frames, needed for most EyeBot mods. Prevents use of a Head.
EyeBot Frame (Torso) – This is what makes it look like an EyeBot, and also acts as Armor, though it may have other effects.
EyeBot Sensor Package (Torso): Like the Mr Handy eyes, sets the Combat AI, can improves perception and eventually accuracy. Requires EyeBot Torso.
EyeBot AI (Torso) – Determines the aggression of your EyeBot buddy.
EyeBot Hat (Torso) – Choose a hat – generally requires the appropriate hat in your inventory to show up and a piece of cloth (or fiberglass in some cases) to build.
EyeBot Radio (Torso) – Select a Radio Station for your EyeBot to play, or No Radio to turn it off.
EyeBot Duraframe Accessory: Exclusive to the Duraframe, choose an Accessory, including ED-E’s numberplates!
EyeBot Paint – Shell (Paint) – Does what it says on the tin.
EyeBot Paint – Visor (Paint) – Also does what it says on the tin. Doesn’t affect the Excavation Frame.
EyeBot Decal (Paint) – Adds Decals to your EyeBot’s Visor. Doesn’t affect the Excavation Frame.
EyeBot Weapon (EyeBot Weapon) – Requires EyeBot Thruster for technical reasons. Primary weapon type for EyeBots. Most recipes will only show up if you have the playable weapon they’re based on in your inventory.

Q&A
>Why are these mods so expensive/hard to get?
>>(I’m not sure if this is an issue or not) Most of the really expensive ones are really good. If it’s a problem for enough people I might cut the numbers. As for requirements, EyeBot tech in the Commonwealth is kinda limited aside from groups/people that would know a bit about robotics, science etc, and I felt perk requirements were kinda underused by the DLC, given the subject matter (especially Robotics Expert).
>>Please provide any feedback you have on the balancing in the thread, I can’t promise I’ll act on any of it, but I might.

>My EyeBot runs away instead of fighting!
>>Poor little fella is scared, it doesn’t understand violence. If you wish to shatter its illusion that the world of Fallout is one in which a small, orb-like robot can survive without resorting to casual brutality, give it an EyeBot Weapon and maybe change its AI package. If that doesn’t work let me know what weapon it’s using and also open the console, click on the robot, type “showinventory” and post what it returns, if you can.

>Why aren’t there any Automatic weapons (or proper flamers)?
>>EyeBots don’t have animations for anything but single-shot weapons. Yeah, it annoys me too and I might find a way to work around it once the GECK is out and I can see what’s going on a little better. If it’s worth anything, I found out when I was doing what I thought was the final batch of testing, and in response I stayed up late adding about half of the weapons that are now in there (including the FlameSpitter and Cryolator, which both took a good while to figure out), just so there was still a good variety.
>>UPDATE: I experimented with swapping the regular attack animation to an automatic one, and while the weapons became automatic, they also failed to stop firing before my little buddy turned to face me, which was both adorable and quite painful. Don’t know if I’ll be able to do this until .hkx files are better understood.

>Why is there no Gauss weapon?
>>There is now. It looks like the Suppressor which isn’t ideal but yeah. Someone in the thread mentioned something about a coil inside the barrel, which was a good enough explanation for me.

>Does doubling up on Hacking, Lockpicking, or Recon Sensor mods do anything?
>>Nope. Might remove the ability to do so sometime.

>What about the others?
>>Yeah, should do. Numbers say it does.

>Why do companion EyeBots float higher than regular ones?
>>Mostly because that’s about where I remember ED-E floating (don’t currently have NV installed to check), but it has the added bonus of making it unlikely that they’ll block your shots, which is something that bugs me with most companions. I was tempted to make it high enough to walk under but there are already some instances where they clip through the top of doors. UPDATE: They’re now a bit lower, around head height. Still higher than vanilla ones but about the same as the original ED-E.

>Why does my EyeBot sound like it’s taking fall damage?
>>Don’t worry, your little buddy’s propulsion systems are working just fine – it isn’t actually getting hurt when it falls, it just wants attention, like a small, adorable child might. (Really though it’s just because setting the movement type to hover causes a whole bunch of problems.)

>My EyeBot weapons don’t work!
>>This is likely a conflict with another mod that allows the use of arms with parts that otherwise wouldn’t allow them. The problem shouldn’t occur for EyeBots built from v0.9a onwards, but for those affected, the solution should be to go back to the workbench, change to non-EyeBot legs, select no arms and no hands for both arm slots, then change back to the EyeBot thruster (and re-add your EyeBot weapon). The EyeBot is trying to use the hand weapon (which wasn’t removed because I was referring to a pre-existing list of all the hands which certain mods wipe) and doesn’t have the animations for it. This should remove those weapons, fixing the issue.

>My EyeBot is buzzing! Make it stop!
>>Sadly there’s not much that can be done about this retroactively – it is/was caused by the excavation frame having a looping sound in the lightning effect .nif and there doesn’t seem to be a way to stop it once it has started. v0.9c will prevent it happening to new EyeBots, but not much can be done retroactively without altering vanilla stuff. Sorry 🙁

>Modification options aren’t showing up!
>>Could be a mod clash (less likely now) or a bad install. Run the uninstaller holotape, follow the uninstall directions to fully uninstall the mod and then reinstall it.

>Meshes aren’t showing up!
>>Uninstall and Reinstall the mod in your mod manager (no need to follow the full uninstall guide in this readme/description), the files probably haven’t unpacked right. If you’re updating from v0.1c or earlier this will also happen due to the significant changes made to the underlying mechanisms of AEC. Take your EyeBot to the Robot Workbench, remove and readd the modifications you want, and it should be fixed.

>I told my EyeBot to farm and now it’s just sitting in one place!
>>You asked a robot that doesn’t have any hands to pick vegetables for you. It will – it is, it’s just concentrating incredibly hard to do so, all so it doesn’t disappoint you by not meeting its six-unit quota.
For real though it’s an animation thing and we don’t have the tools to fix it (at least not without causing a way more serious bug). It’s just the animations, food should still be produced normally and once reassigned they’ll start moving again. I suggest assigning them to Scrap duty, it fits thematically.

>I don’t like [thing] about hats!
>>Please do not take the optional hats seriously.

>I like hats, can you make them for other robots?
>>The way I did it isn’t directly transferable to other robots and also takes a fair bit of tedious work. I also think someone was working on it already and don’t really have much interest in (or time for) doing so myself.